


Be Happy

by BardofHeartDive



Series: Tumblr Posts [13]
Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crisis of Faith, Gen, M/M, Pre-Canon, Ruthless (Mass Effect), Short One Shot, Torfan (Mass Effect), Tumblr Ask Box Fic, breaking up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 04:48:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30033291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BardofHeartDive/pseuds/BardofHeartDive
Summary: Prompted by this ask fromrandom-oc-questions-fairyon tumblr. Not beta-ed, all the mistakes are mine!
Relationships: Male Shepard (Mass Effect)/Original Male Character(s)
Series: Tumblr Posts [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/536902
Kudos: 1





	Be Happy

_ Why can’t you just be happy? _

The first time Dmitri asks it’s an amused, almost fond question over their celebratory dinner. The charges from Torfan have been dismissed. The looming dishonorable discharge completely averted with a single call. Two hours ago he was musing over his preference between firing squad or lethal injection, now it’s red or white wine.

“Would you really prefer the alternative?” Dmitri continues, a lighthearted tease, and Donovan would rather be alive than dead, free instead of thrown into a prison to rot, so he tries not to think about the piles of batarian bodies and nods and sips his wine.

_ Why can’t you just be happy? _

It doesn’t take long for amusement to turn to exasperation. 

It’s partially his own fault. A promotion, especially accompanied by N7 designation, comes with a change in assignments and he questions each of them in a way he never has before.

“This is what you wanted.” Dmitri sighs as he taps the symbol on Donovan’s chest. The badge of honor now a brand of shame. “Everything you wanted.”

He wants to answer that he didn’t want this. At least not like this. Not when it’s built on a lie. Not when the price is his team and hundreds of innocent lives. That there’s no honor in awards earned with other people’s blood. He wants to but he’s not sure how or if Dmitri would understand anyway, so he says nothing.

_ Why can’t you just be happy? _

He isn’t sure when it becomes an accusation. The same brutal cross-examination that Dmitri built his own career and reputation on.

“They could have thrown the book at you,” Dmitri rails. “Disrespect toward a superior commissioned officer. Missing movement. Unauthorized absence. Willfully disobeying a superior commissioned officer. Mutiny and sedition. Aiding the enemy. You should be thrilled with the way things played out. Or do you honestly think that justice was served?”

And for the first time he snaps back.

“You want to talk about justice? Where’s the fucking justice in leaving civilians to hang after after we made a bags of the thing? We led the pirates right to them and Kyle wanted us to abandon them! It was the wrong call!”

“That doesn’t make it an unlawful one.”

“But you honestly think following it would have been justice served?”

He spits the words back at him, some deep, desperate, wounded part of him hoping they cut just as deep. They do but Donovan finds no satisfaction in the flash of pain. Dmitri believes in the law the way he believed in the Alliance and for one terrible moment he is Dmitri’s Torfan. 

Then the hurt is gone, replaced by a certainty both harder and more brittle than it was before. As if denying doubt could make his faith stronger. As if by blaming him, he can absolve himself.

“It would have prevented this mess, wouldn’t it?”

_ Why can’t you just be happy? _

Donovan “celebrates” the first anniversary alone but the words linger even with Dmitri gone. No wine this time, white or red, just eight shots of whiskey in a line on the bar in front of him.

One for the people he killed, by success and failure.

One for each member of his team, six Alliance soldiers dead in the name of justice, he hopes.

One for himself, the life he lost without dying.


End file.
